Van Crash Kills Eight Oregon Firefighters

A van full of firefighters on their way home from a wildfire collided with a tractor-trailer and exploded in flames Sunday, killing all eight inside and injuring the two people in the truck.

The dead include two men from Portland, four from Roseburg and two from Myrtle Creek.

Authorities said Portland residents Richard B. Moore II, 21, and David Hammer, 38, died in the crash. Roseburg firefighters Ricardo "Ricky" Ruiz, 19; Jeff Hengel, 21; Jesse James, 22; and Leland Price Jr., 27 were also killed. And the final two victims - Paul Gibson, 25, and Mark Ransdell, 23 - were from Myrtle Creek, Oregon.

The firefighters were returning to Oregon from an Idaho wildfire late Sunday morning, when the van crashed on a remote eastern Oregon highway about 15 miles west of the town of Vale, Malheur County Sheriff Andy Bentz said.

The van apparently tried to pass another truck on a curve and crossed the double-yellow line before it collided head-on with the truck, Undersheriff Brian Wolfe said. Investigators were looking into whether the van was in a passing zone when it started to pass but failed to get back into its lane before entering the no-pass zone.

The occupants of the Swift Co. tractor-trailer, Steven Anthony Nicholson, 37, and Joy Nicholson, 39, were able to free themselves and were taken to an Ontario hospital with dislocations and burns, Wolfe said. Their conditions were not available Sunday night, but Wolfe said their injuries were not life-threatening. The couple is from Ogden, Utah.

Witnesses said the collision ignited an immediate fire that burned the van down to its frame and melded it to the remains of the truck. On Monday, eight American flags stood in the charred earth where the collision occurred, along with a small stone on which someone had written, "Firefighters, rest in peace."

"We're just working together," said Robert Krueger, president of First Strike Environmental. "This is like losing your own child.... We're hanging together."

It took more than seven hours for the highway to reopen, once authorities recovered the bodies and highway crews shoveled ash and debris onto trucks.

The firefighters worked for First Strike Environmental, a Roseburg-based contract firefighting company. Eight flags also stood outside the company's headquarters, one for each firefighter killed in the crash.

Earlier Monday, Roseburg Mayor Larry Rich told NBC's Today Show that "so many of our residents will know at least one or two of those individuals.